After four years there is a change at the top of the highest-earning HR directors in Germany. Our exclusive analysis shows why top salaries are harder to compare than they seem at first glance.
With 9.1 million euros, Judith Wiese, CHRO at Siemens, was the highest-earning human resources director in 2025. Gunnar Kilian was the defending champion as the highest-earning HR director for four years in a row (2021 to 2024). After the CHRO left the Volkswagen Group in July 2025, there is now a new contender for the title. In addition to her basic salary of 1.2 million, Wiese received benefits in kind and fringe benefits worth around 610,000 euros and variable remuneration components worth a good 7.3 million euros. This brought her total compensation to 9.1 million euros.
But Renate Wagner, CHRO at Allianz, was also above average last year with a total compensation of a good 5.7 million euros. This amounted to 4.3 million euros in 2025. Birgit Bohle, board member for human resources and legal affairs at Deutsche Telekom, managed just over that with 4.4 million euros. As with the first two candidates, the variable compensation components were particularly crucial. Bohle was thus able to increase her basic salary by a total of 3.3 million euros.
